


Close Call

by Writings_of_a_Hufflepuff



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Sad, reader is gender neutral but wears glasses but that's such a tiny bit you could easily ignore, this is so much angst and so sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26731276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writings_of_a_Hufflepuff/pseuds/Writings_of_a_Hufflepuff
Summary: Nick never wakes you up when he comes home, he always lets you sleep. But not tonight. Tonight is different.Based on the events of S1 Ep6
Relationships: Nick Stokes/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Close Call

Normally he wouldn’t have woken you after a long shift. Normally, Nick would have tiptoed into your shared apartment, quietly kicked his shoes off and gotten undressed without making too much of a sound. He would have been careful when sliding under the covers next to you, not wanting to wake you up, not wanting to disturb your sleep. You always slept so peacefully. He’d smile as he looked at you next to him, before nestling into his pillow and letting the exhaustion of a hard day’s work lull him to sleep. But, today hadn’t been normal, his shift had been anything but. He hadn’t even been able to drive himself home. Grissom had done that, his hands had been shaking too bad, the adrenaline still running laps around his circulatory system. The fear, the realisation of his own fragility, shook him to the core. 

He sits carefully down on the bed, not undressing like he normally would or pulling the covers back to go to sleep. Instead, he turns to look at you, at the smoothness of your expression, how everything about you seems relaxed when you sleep, the gentle breaths that help your chest to rise and fall, and the bedhead he always made fun of. It should calm the shakes in his body, the anxious bubbling in his chest, but it doesn’t. It makes it worse because for a second he thinks of what he might have lost and of how it all might have hurt you. 

It’s a gentle call of your name and the soft touch of a warm hand to your cheek that starts to stir you awake. At first you’re confused, in that bewildered and dazed moment between sleep and wakefulness you’re not quite sure what’s going on or why that southern accent is so familiar. But, you blink away the sleep turning towards the voice, hand fumbling on the bedside table for your glasses before pulling them on to turn the bleary blurry shapes clear in the low light.

“Nick?” Your voice is heavy with sleep but concern rides your voice at the sight of tears in his eyes. They’re red and blotches cover the skin underneath them like he’s already cried once tonight. He’s gnawing on his bottom lip so hard you think he might hurt himself. You reach out with a gentle hand and pull his bottom lip free of his teeth, before cupping his jaw as you sit yourself up to meet him. “Baby, what’s wrong?” 

He isn’t a crying sort of man, Nick. He’s sensitive and he’s sweet, but he doesn’t often cry. He’s one of the most composed people you know. Tears come from Nick only in the most extreme circumstances, a bad case, a horrible death, rarely does it mean something simple or easy to handle. It sends a horrible feeling to your gut and you know without him saying a word that something happened on the job, something bad enough that he woke you in the night to talk when he’d normally let you sleep. 

You scoot yourself forward, legs wrapping over his, tangling together as you pull yourself as close to him as you can before pressing kisses across his cheekbones, his jaw, his nose, his chin. You do this because you don’t know what else to do while you wait for an answer. 

His breathing is shaky, rough, like he’s holding in a sob and you kiss away the tears that quietly fall over his cheeks in slow rivers. Arms wrapped around his broad shoulders as if you could shield him from whatever happened, whatever wanted to hurt him, whatever might still hurt him. 

“I...she was gonna shoot me...she was gonna shoot me.” You don’t ask who, you don’t need to know. You have to physically stop the gasp that wants to leave your throat knowing it won’t help, knowing it’ll make him feel worse, that he’s scared you, that his pain is your pain. So you hold it in your throat like you hold the tears in your eyes, in a desperate attempt to be strong for the man that nearly died tonight. For the man that is always so strong for you. 

“It’s okay, baby, i’m here, and no one is going to hurt you. Do you understand me, Nick? No one is going to hurt you while i’m here.” You press your cheek to the crown of his head, pulling his cheek against your shoulders and holding him tightly as he cries. 

He cries so hard and so loud that you think he might fall apart, but you’re determined to hold him together, even though your heart is breaking and your own fears have almost been realised tonight. 

Nick has always been the one to tell you not to worry, that he’d be fine, that he’d come home safe after every shift. It had always been you that would worry, you that understood his mortality, the reality of his job and the risks. For the first time it seems like Nick really understands that  _ he  _ could die, that  _ he  _ could get hurt. It’s a fear you’ve always held deep in your heart, that horrifying sinking in your stomach when you don’t hear from him, when you have time to think that maybe something happened while he was on a case. 

“I love you...I love you so much.” You whisper it into his ear, hoping beyond hope that the love you have for him can in some way soothe the fear, the pain, the thoughts that are cycling through his head and the feelings that are rushing through his bloodstream. 

It feels like hours that you sit there rocking him, keeping him pressed against you as he cries and mutters and mumbles. It feels like hours, like your voice will go hoarse from all the reassurances, all the I loves yous, all the words that you hope will soothe him. It can’t in truth be more than an hour, and your voice is not hoarse, but his is. Rough from all the crying and the emotional confessions that fall from his lips, things that make little sense but he says them because they hurt him and they come to mind. It’s ramblings, but you understand that feeling, the fear, the sadness, how it can all bubble out of your mouth in streams of words, your thoughts made vocal, real. So you let him.

When he finally goes quiet and the tears have stopped you gently pull him to lie down on the bed, helping him untie his shoes and pull them off, to undress before tucking him under the covers. You follow suit, not wanting to be far from him, holding him tight hoping that maybe you can offer some semblance, some feeling of safety and protection. 

When his breathing is finally even, when you can sense the calming of his body, the muscles relaxing, you allow yourself to cry. You cry out of fear, out of a deep worry that one day he might not come home, that tonight he could have died and you wouldn’t be able to tell him all the wonderful things that bubble inside of you whenever he’s around, that you wouldn’t have any more years together. It is an utterly paralysing thought to think that the man you love was inches away from being murdered tonight, that he could be taken away from you with little effort. So you cry, you cry as you hold him tight in his sleep because you know come morning you need to be strong for him and you know that letting this fear fester and wallow inside of you will do nothing good. 

There is no doubt in your mind that tonight was a close call. There is no doubt in your mind that you could have lost Nick and it reminds you to hold him closer, love him harder, and never leave things on an angry conversation or a harsh word. It reminds you to always say I love you. 


End file.
